Recently, a camera integrated recording/reproducing apparatus (hereinafter referred to as a video camera) which adopts a disc-like recording medium (hereinafter referred to as disc), such as a digital versatile disc (DVD), as a recording medium has appeared. Such a video camera is constructed featuring random access characteristic of the recording medium which is not attained by a magnetic tape. For example, the aforementioned video camera can record video data and audio data of photographed scenes into a disc in the form of a file. Upon reproduction, each file can be accessed directly so that rapid reproduction operation can be attained easy and at high speed on a per file basis (regarding such a video camera, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-314916).
On the other hand, a data recording format in the “QuickTime” (trade mark) provided by Apple Computer Inc. in US (hereinafter referred to as just “QuickTime”) has been well known as a multimedia tool for handling video data and audio data in the field of personal computer and the like. The QuickTime file format is an appropriate file format for handling multimedia data such as audio and video in time series and a file format based thereon has been adopted in Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)-4 (Regarding QuickTime, seen for example, Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-510165).
The file format of the QuickTime is constituted of, mainly, two sections, “media data” and “movie”. The “media data” is actual data (data content) for video and audio. The “movie” is information needed for exchanging its “media data” between respective applications and holds additional information relating to that “media data”.
Further, the QuickTime file format has two types in terms of holding the “media data” and “movie”.
A first type is an independent file format in which the “media data” and “movie” are held in a single file. A second type is a reference file format in which the “media data” and “movie” are held in separate files.
In the case of the reference type, the “movie” file contains information of reference to the “media data” file. Generally, although in an application for file reproduction and the like, the QuickTime file is accessed through the “movie”, the application does not need to take care of whether the file is of independent type or reference type as long as the QuickTime file is accessed through the “movie”.
Here, a case where the aforementioned QuickTime file is applied to such a recording/reproducing apparatus as a video camera loaded with a rewritable disc is considered. In this case, the QuickTime file is recorded on a disc following universal disk format (UDF) which is a disc file system, but a following problem arises.
In the case of the reference type QuickTime file, since the files are recorded separately, a following problem arises at time of file copy. That is, although the “media data” and “movie” are related to each other as two files within the QuickTime file, they are recognized as two completely independent files under the UDF file system. Thus, even if coping of “movie” file is executed, the “media data” file is not copied to a copy destination. As a result, even if the copied “movie” is specified at the copy destination, an application for file reproduction cannot be executed because there is no actual data thereof, which is a problem.
On the other hand, the independent type QuickTime file has a following problem in terms of file operability. Generally, a disc drive having the UDF file system for a compact disc (CD) or a DVD has a slow data transmission speed and seek speed as compared to, for example, a hard disc drive, thereby taking a long time for file access. Additionally, because video data handled for the QuickTime file format is often of a large capacity, it takes an extremely long time to access that file, which is another problem.